talk

Or Gallery Berlin is pleased to present Armen Avanessian and Andreas Töpfer in Drawing Speculative Poetics?, for the fifth in our speaker series ‘Inclinations’ hosted by Patricia Reed.

In their lecture-drawing Armen Avanessian and Andreas Töpfer will present their thoughts on Speculative Poetics via their current book project on ‘Speculative Drawing’, a work in progress that experiments with visual thinking and the possibilities of translating words into images. We might be confronted with a similar othering as once described by Hegel on the ‘speculative sentence’ where the subject disappears and transforms itself in its object: thoughts changing their meaning when becoming images and images becoming readable as text.

Armen Avanessian teaches Comparative Literature at the Free University Berlin. He is a Research Associate at the Collaborative Research Centre “Aesthetic Experience and the Dissolution of Artistic Limits”. He is the founder of the bilingual research platform Spekulative Poetik (spekulative-poetik.de), editor of the book series Spekulationen for Merve Verlag Berlin.

Andreas Töpfer studied industrial, book and communication design. Since then he has been working as a freelance graphic designer, designer, visual essayist, live drawing artist and art director. In addition, he also co-founded the Berlin publishing house kookbooks with Daniela Seel. Töpfer’s graphic work has been exhibited worldwide, and has been rewarded with several prizes. Excerpts from his extensive portfolio can be seen on his websites.(andreastoepfer.blogspot.com, salon.io/vektorbarock).

The presentation of work revolves around the posing of a question that is the thrust of a guest’s activities. It goes without saying that questions may not be answered, but are grappled with in their unresolvability. An inclination is the force of attraction to a question (without a straightforward response), yet also to each other, as a community who partakes in a common quest(ion).
Hosted by Patricia Reed

Arriving at a question is already a departure.

Questions are a declaration of departure.

Arriving at a question in thought or activity is also the creation of a trajectory, of inclining oneself towards an unknown goal, yet not without direction.

A question inclines a departure in a particular way, but a question itself is generic – it propels all modes of seeking some thing. Questions possess the force of bending and swerving ideas/action.

A question is the confrontation and departure from a lack. To arrive at a question is to arrive at a gap in knowledge, action and speech – a gap that cannot be immediately filled in without the inclination towards something other.

A question is indisciplinary; the inclining magnetism of a question knows no disciplinary bounds.

In Kooperation mit der Botschaft von Kanada/In collaboration with the Embassy of Canada.